FRA National Correspondents Network

Information note 3, 15 October 2003

Dear colleagues,

The global meeting of National Correspondents is now only a month away and we are working hard with the preparations. The meeting will be an unprecedented gathering of FRA experts from all regions and it will be an opportunity to share knowledge, to discuss the contents of FRA 2005, and to prepare and plan for the reporting phase. I look forward to see you in Rome!

This third information note to FRA National Correspondents brings up some issues and concerns that have been raised in recent meetings. The purpose is to inform openly about these concerns and to inform about how the global FRA process relates to them.

Concerns have been raised by some European countries that the FRA process are not sufficiently linked to regional processes, in particular the MCPFE (the Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forests in Europe, also known as the Pan-European process). This note gives a short review of the overall FRA process, partnerships and organisation to give a perspective to this concern.

Concerns have also been raised by some countries that the planned request for information from countries for the FRA 2005 update is different and expanded compared to FRA 2000. The concern is that the request may be incompatible with previous reports, and that it will impose more work on the countries. This note attempts to clarify some of these technical aspects of FRA 2005.

I hope that you find the note informative and valuable and look forward to discuss these matters further during the meeting in Rome.